Section 17 Notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

WITHHOLDING INFORMATION

Section 40(2) – Personal Data Relating To Third Parties The information you have requested contains personal data. Personal data can only be released if to do so would not contravene any of the data protection principles. The first principle states:

*Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless—* (a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and (b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.

We believe releasing the requested information into the public domain would be unfair to the individuals concerned; these individuals have a clear and strong expectation that their personal data will be held in confidence and not disclosed to the public under the FOI Act.

Disclosure would therefore breach the first data protection principle as it would be unfair. We do not have to consider schedules 2 and 3.

Further information on the data protection principles is available as follows: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/schedule/1 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/schedule/2 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/schedule/3